


Beyond this Dusty Road

by noveltea



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: femme_fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-03
Updated: 2010-08-03
Packaged: 2017-10-10 22:11:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noveltea/pseuds/noveltea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the fire, after the fight, Ellen re-examines how she got to this point, and where she's headed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beyond this Dusty Road

_Dear Joanna,_

_I'm writing this while you play outside in the dirt. You're making such a mess, and I know you're going to be a right royal pain when you come inside and I make you take a bath. You're smiling, and it's such a bright, happy face. I wish childhood would never end for you._

_Sooner or later you're going to realise that your daddy is out there fighting the monsters that lurk in the dark. You're going to realise that all of mommy and daddy's friends at the Roadhouse aren't like the rest of the normal world. That _we_ aren't a part of that normal world._

_But I don't want that for you._

_I want you to always be happy, and not to be afraid. I want you to go to college and excel at all your dreams._

_I want the best for you, because you're my daughter and I love you._

_Love, Mom_

  
Half a dozen things survived the fire, all of them locked inside the safe.

Standing in the wreckage, Ellen Harvelle felt the overwhelming sense of loss; a hole was missing in her heart now, where her work and her friends had been. Their loss was such a careless aside in a war that had been waging for centuries.

It didn't seem fair.

Nothing in life ever did.

She grabbed what little remained, shoving them roughly into a well-worn backpack and threw it into the back of the truck Bobby had supplied for her. Her home was gone, and she had to find a new one, however long it took her.

  
_Dear Joanna,_

_You turned ten today and we didn't have a cake. You wanted ice-cream and donuts instead and like a dutiful parent I obeyed. Rick Johnston, Old Bill Grey and Mickey Hodge were here and sang a horrendous version of Happy Birthday while you danced around the room._

_Your daddy would have been proud._

_Love, Mom _

  
Her cell phone rang. Caller ID said Bobby Singer.

Ellen hit the 'busy' signal and continued driving. With the windows round down, the hot, dusty air blew into the cabin of the truck and it reminded her of her own childhood, and the days on the road with her Pa.

Everyone had always assumed Bill had introduced her to Hunting.

The truth was, she'd been hunting a lot longer than he had. A lot more reluctantly so.

She'd never been able to escape that world, and running the Roadhouse had been the closest she could get to normal while trapped by the knowledge of exactly what lurked in the shadows.

That didn't mean she was defenseless.

_Dear Joanna,_

_I am so mad at you, girl. You had a shot at a life out of this one, a scholarship to college to study anything you wanted. You don't want this life._

_I don't want this life you._

_You're my baby girl._

_Mom_

  
She pulled into a motel, paying cash for a room for the night and parking the truck around the back. She stuffed the weapons she'd raided from Bobby's place after the fight into a duffel bag and carried that, and the backpack, into the small, dank room she'd rented. She'd never liked staying in roadside motels; she liked a home base, something to go home to.

That, she'd gotten from her own Mama. Barbara Grey-Wright. The woman who'd carved her way through spirits and demons with the fury of a mama bear protecting her own.

Ellen was always the first to admit that her mother was scary when she hunted.

Hunting ran in her blood, from both sides of her family, going further back on her mother's side, with most of the Grey women taking up the mantle from one another – usually until it killed them.

Her father was a second-generation hunter, and a damn fine man. You'd think the shortened life expectancy of a hunter wouldn't breed good men, but it did and it was a shame when they died.

It just wasn't fair.

Sitting inside the motel room, away from everything she knew, Ellen went back to what she'd done before all this.

She cleaned the weapons; the shotguns and the knives. She was meticulous, having been trained by the best. Twenty-odd years away from active hunting hadn't changed anything about the way a hunter should treat their tools.

She spent more time on the machete, polishing it until her reflection stared back at her from the gleaming surface. She'd always preferred blades to guns when hunting, despite the hazards of close-quarter fighting.

Her father had given her a machete after her first hunt. Her first weapon for the beginning of her own collection.

She'd buried it with him after he was killed.

She'd figured he'd need it in the next life.

  
_Dear Joanna,_

_I know your daddy told you lots of stories about hunting. Sometimes he almost sounded like he was glorifying it, and I never liked it when he did that. You'd look at him with those beautiful eyes of yours full of wonder like he was a hero in a fairytale._

_He was a hero, but a hero from a different kind of fairytale. In his fairytale, he faced death every time he left our home. He left knowing he might not come back to us – to you. He spun you around in his arms as he goes to leave, knowing well that it might be the last time he sees you, kisses you, hears your laughter following him out the door, seeing you wave in the rear-view mirror of his truck._

_It broke his heart just as much as it does mine._

_The monsters in his stories aren't brightly coloured dragons with bad tempers. Some of them hurt people without realising it, because they don't know what they are. Others just don't care, and sooner or later your daddy's luck was going to run out. And it did._

_You're all I have left now, and I want to keep you safe, like any mother would. And Lord knows I'll do my damnedest to make sure I keep that promise._

_But this fairytale doesn't have a happy ending._

_I want you to remember that._

_Mom._

  
She'd been seven years old the first time she accompanied one of her parents on a hunt. Not through choice on anyone's part, but they'd stumbled across a job while she'd been with them and they had no choice but to bring her along.

She stayed in the truck, hiding under blankets, and trying not to hear the sounds coming from inside the reported abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Austin, Texas. She could remember it clearly, even to this day, how her heart raced in her chest, and how afraid she was to peer out the window in case her parent's luck had run out.

She'd had nightmares for years after.

The first time she ever hunted with her father in her own right, she'd been fourteen. She'd asked to come along, and despite his concerned eyes, she knew he was proud that his only child would follow in his footsteps. She didn't have the heart to tell him that she'd only asked to see if she had the courage to stand and face the danger without running away.

She had to know.

She'd listened patiently as he explained the job. Vampire nest. _Vampires._ She'd laughed at the notion, until his frown robbed the sound from her throat. Who'd have thought vampires were real? She listened somberly as he went over the facts, the plan he'd laid out as meticulously as he cleaned his tools, and then he showed her the weapons inventory in the trunk of the truck.

He gave her the shotgun. "Vampires can only be killed when their heads are cut from their heads, got it?" She'd nodded. "Gunshot wounds distract 'em, and you'll be responsible for that."

If only plans went accordingly.

Within minutes of their approach to the nest, they were facing these fabled creatures of the night. They were nothing like Ellen had pictured them; nothing like the movies.

She started shooting, lining them up, one by one in her sights.

She didn't miss.

She'd been taught well.

But there more vampires than he father had thought and that made all the difference. Shooting them was no longer a suitable distraction and her father was overwhelmed.

She expected to panic. To freeze up and get herself killed.

She never expected to pick up her father's machete and join him in the melee.

She never expected to survive.

Sitting in the truck, covered in blood and gore, she couldn't stop shaking, even when her father wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.

"You did good, Elle," he told her, his voice warmer than she could ever remember.

The next day, he presented her with her own machete.

"For my little fighter."

  
_Dear Joanna,_

_I know you don't like me telling you what to do, so I'm not going to do that anymore. If you want to run off and fight demons and monsters that's your choice. You're an adult now, and I can't make you do anything you don't want to._

_You've made your choice; you're a grown woman, and I have to respect that, even if I don't like it. And I don't like it. Maybe it's because you're so far away from me and I can't protect you. That instinct never goes away. That's what being a mother is about._

_But as a hunter…_

_I know what you're driven to do._

_I never told you about my own parents, your grandparents. They died before you were born, just after I met your daddy. They were hunters, too. They always had been. I grew up surrounded by this life, just like you. And I made my choice, just like you, too._

_This job is terrifying and exhilarating. You're the light fighting in the darkness._

_But don't let that darkness overtake you, like it does some others. You might be a hunter, but that's not all you are. You're smart, and you're my daughter, and I know you'll keep yourself safe. Your daddy and I raised you well._

_The Roadhouse is gone. Ash is gone. A lot of good friends are gone, all because of this war against the darkness. This is the risk that hunters take. The risk that I'm going to take again._

_A lot of bad things escaped from Hell not too long ago, and the hunters are going to need all the help they can get._

_That includes my help, and without the Roadhouse to provide respite, the least I can do is help them out. I'll be fine, don't worry. I taught your daddy a thing or two back in the day and I know how to keep my self safe._

_If you need me, you know how to find me._

_Stay safe, my beautiful baby girl._

_Love, Mom._

  
Ellen stuffed the letters into the backpack roughly. The dates on all the letters, save the last were old. She'd been writing to Jo ever since she'd been a baby, but Jo had never seen them. One day, maybe she'd pass them along. And maybe, one day she'd understand.

She opened the trunk, returning the weapons to the safety within, running her fingertips along the blade of the machete, careful to avoid the edges. It caught the early rays of morning sunlight, blinding her momentarily.

There had been word of demon activity up North.

It had been a while since she'd personally hunted a demon.

She shut the trunk, taking comfort in the familiar "thunk" as it closed. She left the key to the room in the mailbox in the door and pulled the truck out onto the road.

There was nothing between her and the demons but a long, long road, and a dark and dangerous war.

She took a deep breath, and kept driving.


End file.
